


Twenty Hours

by HostileMuppet



Category: Hiveswap, Homestuck
Genre: Ardata Has Depression TM, Character Study, Chittr, GrubTube
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-01
Updated: 2019-03-01
Packaged: 2019-11-07 13:16:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17961257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HostileMuppet/pseuds/HostileMuppet
Summary: Ardata Carmia is a happy person that has absolutely nothing to complain about whatsoever.





	Twenty Hours

**Author's Note:**

> im not a writer by any means and this is my first fic so idrk what im doing lmaoooooooo anyway stan ardata

4:03 AM.

The sun would be starting to rise pretty soon.

You switch the camera off, ending the stream. You just stand there. You stand there and listen to the sobs of the kids in the cages, and your lusus scampering off to whatever she does when it’s not feeding time.

Tonight’s dinner wasn’t finished. The tick was full, but the troll was still alive. He was crying, whining, muted sobs as the gash in his stomach spewed out bronze blood. His jaw was clamped shut, you made sure of that. You can’t have him scaring your lusus away when she’s feeding.

You put him out of his misery.

 

4:17 AM.

You raided your fridge. Nothing was really in there, you haven’t gone shopping in a while, but it’s fine. You’ll go tomorrow. Tonight? Who cares. You grabbed a bag of crisps from the cupboard because that’s a decent dinner, apparently.

It doesn’t taste good, at all. Might be stale. You can’t think of anything but the poor bronze boy you butchered in front of thousands of people. He probably had dreams. Friends. Quadrant mates?

Maybe he would have liked these crisps.

You roll up the bag and put it back in the cupboard.

 

5:53 AM.

Sometimes the buzzing of the roaming drones is soothing. Sometimes it helps you drown everything out, reverberated through the slime.

This is not one of those times.

You can’t sleep. You toss and turn but the slime gets up your nose.

Gross.

You sit up and grab your phone off to the side of your recooperacoon. Scrolling Chittr is better than lying in slime thinking about how much of a terrible person you are.

42 notifications.

That’s a lot to deal with at 6 AM.

12 mentions.

Slightly better.

Most of them are miscellaneous messages about how bloodthirsty and sinister you are and how much those little mid-to-highbloods wish they could be like you, slaughtering whoever you want with no concern about who stands in your way.

There’s one message that stands out.

It seems to be from an olive, on what looks like a throwaway account if the lack of any other chits is anything to go by, so it won’t get tracked back to them and get them culled.

You read it and you almost throw your phone to the other side of your room.

                (how brave of you to stream yourself enforcing the hemospectrum. how subversive. you could at least use your platform to promote trolls with less followers, but this demented butcher shop is okay too.)

How dare they? They don’t know anything about you. You work very hard to put on a good show, and whenever one of your mutuals posts a stream link you make sure to rechit it.

You suppose you could do better.

A lot better.

You make a chit asking your followers to send you their promo posts, commission information, anything you can rechit. Your notifications instantly blow back up, and you try to rechit every single one, but you get tired and eventually drift back off into the slime.

 

1:15 PM.

The alarm goes off, the screams ripped from one of your early streams shakes you out of your slumber.

It’s still light outside, a good few hours before the sun goes down and the moons come out.

The moons, pink and green, like that goldblood that’s taken GrubTube by storm.

Maybe you should reach out to them, ask if they want to collaborate. You’re sure it would give both of your follower counts a decently sized boost. But you wouldn’t want trolls to go onto their regular streams expecting blood and gore, asking them to butcher an innocent rustie.

You wouldn’t wish it on anyone. You decide not to message them.

 

1:32 PM.

Still no food in your hive. Maybe you should just order something from Door Smash. You’re a cobalt, the drones would prioritise your order over the lower castes, so it’d get here pretty quickly.

Is that okay, morally?

Nothing you do is okay, morally.

You order some grubcakes and it arrives within a half hour.

 

1:56 PM.

You continue to rechit various promo posts while finishing off your grubcakes. Artists, writers, musicians. You really have such talented fans.

But there’s one that bothers you.

A streamer, teal, who kidnaps trolls who have broken laws, written or otherwise, and tortures them for the entertainment of the masses.

Huh.

You scroll past.

 

2:13 PM.

There are more of them.

More and more copycat streamers, stealing your gimmicks and marketing it as original. None of them are trying to feed their lusii.

You don’t know why it makes you so angry. You don’t know these people. They mean nothing to you, you can just ignore them.

A single tear runs down your cheek and you wipe it away.

Why would they want to do what you do?

 

2:33 PM.

You decide to get in the ablution trap. You prefer showers, but you feel like you’ve owned a soak, even if it’ll make your claws all wrinkly.

Those trap bombs you bought a quarter sweep ago are finally worth something. It turns the water glittery, and you consider draining it and getting in the shower instead, but you decide to get in anyway.

 

3:12 PM.

You fell asleep in the ablution trap.

The nightmares you had weren’t that bad, they’re usually worse, but you’re still a little shaken up.

You dry yourself off and get dressed, trying to take your mind off the visions of the man with a plain white ball for a head, adjusting his green suit as he looked you over, watching you like a documentary as a purpleblood you had never met locked you away in a golden cage. You screamed yourself hoarse, but they just laughed at you.

Deep breathes, Carmia.

You apply your lipstick, black and glossy, just the way you like it. It brings out the colour of your fangs.

 

3:33 PM.

Time for the stream announcement chit. You press send, and the link for your GrubTube page goes up. No activity for a few hours, you usually start around 12-1 AM if there aren’t any sudden technical difficulties, but this is just a heads up that something will be happening that night.

It’s hard being a one woman show.

Maybe you should hire someone to manage your Chittr for you?

No, that’s pretentious. Your followers love you for how you personally interact with them.

They also love you for how you feed lowbloods to your lusus to save your own skin.

You shake the thoughts out of your head again. You shouldn’t think that way.

That splaysac is looking really good right now. Maybe you should take a nap.

 

7:21 PM.

By the time you wake up it’s already dark outside.

That ‘nap’ was a lot longer than you expected. You should have set an alarm.

Oh well, you would have just spent the day watching GrubTube anyway. Not a huge loss.

You decide to order a drone to bring you your groceries instead of going out. It probably would have done you good, you haven’t left the hive for a while, but you’re a busy woman.

Those cage doors don’t oil themselves.

 

10:31 PM.

You spend most of your free time for the day watching Television Streaming Service and checking your palmhusk. Nothing really interests you.

Nothing has for a long time.

 

11:58 PM.

It’s almost time.

The tripod is set up, your followers have already arrived in chat, there’s a rustblood strapped to the table.

Everything is ready.

You reach into the rustie’s mind, to make him focus on you, try to calm him down.

It doesn’t work.

You don’t blame him.

 

12:00 PM.

The stream goes live. You turn to the camera with the biggest smile you can muster.

Hopefully most of your followers are too fascinated by the rustie screaming his lungs out to notice the tears pricking the corners of your eyes.

Showtime.


End file.
